Question regarding my training plan

I am in to my 2nd week of my Half Marathon program which I downloaded from this site. (Garmin Sub 1.30).

I have looked at my training days and Mondays clash with my circuits classs i do at the gym.

Yesterday I did cicuits in the morning (7am), day at work, then as soon as I got home I went out for a 7 mile run at 7.20 pace which I struggled with if I am honest.

This morning I has 8 x 400m intervals which again i really found difficult with heavy legs.

I am in a catch 22 because I like circuits as it is the only bit of weight training I do and keeps me ticking over. But running in the evening after the class i feel might be wearing myself out and causing more damage than good.

If i missed the monday evening running which seems to be on average 7miles, do you think this would impact on my goal of a sub 1.30 time?

Hi, can you move the days about so that the days you do circuits are the 'rest' days on the program? I think as long as you dont have 2 hard days next to each other (eg long run next to intervals) you should be able to without affecting the program much?

what time are you aiming for, and whats your PB for the HM distance? Reason for the question is that its supposed to be 7miles at an easy pace.

I've used this plan before (and run just under 1:30) but my easy pace was around 8:20 min/mile compared to your 7:20 min/mile. You shoudn't be struggling on the easy runs as you won't have recovered enough for the hard sessions.

Sounds like a pretty bloody stupid plan to me! Does the Monday run come the day after a long run by any chance? 7:20/m is more like marathon pace than easy, so 7 miles would be a fairly hard work-out in itself - and then you've got intervals the next day! If I were you I would just make the Monday evening run much easier. Treat it as a recovery run; 5 miles @ 8:30/m, certainly no faster than 8:00/m.

Sorry Chris, I mis-read the schedule - you are right it was a 7m steady rather than a 7m easy run.

I must admit, I found this plan had too many steady runs & I replaced a few with easy runs when I used it. Rather than mess with training centre, I didn't follow the workout on that day (otherwise it would keep beeping at me to Speed Up!)

I did the RW Garmin 1:40 schedule over the summer and there are a lot of 'steady' paced runs. These get quite tough once you get into double figures with the mileage and like stutyr, I tended to run the longer ones at least partly at easy pace (i.e 7 miles easy - 5miles steady).

McMillian rates them though, but I doubt that running one or two slower or reducing the distance when they clash with your circuits will harm your training too much.

@prf Steady pace is a stamina workout intended to increase lactate treshold. Like a longer, slightly slower tempo, so definitely not an easy or recovery session. This is what McMillian say about them:

Steady-state runs were once a staple in the training programs of U.S. distance runners but somehow fell out of favor. Runners now seem to have only two speeds, slow and fast - no in-between. But the steady-state run is one of the most beneficial types of workouts especially as you complete your base training and during the initial parts of your Stamina phase (see Lecture 5). The appropriate pace range for steady-state runs is between your 1:15:00 and 2:30:00 race pace. Your heart rate will likely be between 83 and 87% of maximum and the runs should last at least 25 minutes and can go as long as an hour and 15 minutes.

These are pretty tough efforts not because of the pace but because of the duration of running so be prepared to increase your concentration to stay on pace and to take a good recovery day afterwards in order to reap the full benefits. Begin with shorter steady-state runs of 25 minutes at 2:30:00 race pace and build to one hour runs with shorter (25- to 45-minute) steady-state runs at 1:15:00 pace.

The Garmin plans use the following definition for Steady: Steady - a comfortable, but purposeful, pace. About marathon pace (79-84% MHR).

The next speed up in the plan is the Threshold Run: Brisk (or Threshold (THR)) - around your target half-marathon pace (87-91% MHR).

I didn't like the balance in the Garmin 1:30 plan and dropped out a few weeks in, rehashed it and came up with somethin that suited me better. There just seemed to be too much steady running to cope with

Ooh, actually my average pace for "general" runs this year (130 so far) is 7:19/m, although heart rate average is just 66% max. But then the fastest marathon runner in the world does the bulk of his running at 8:00m/m, so there's definitely a case for slowing it down in between quality sessions!

Chris - sounds like a good plan. You can always add in an additional easy run if you find you're recovering better from the weekend long run as you progress.

Just thought I would update you on my training. I have ditched the garmin plan as like many others have said, too many steady runs and it is getting me to do what I consider silly pacing over long distances.

I went through my runnerworld book I was given for my birthday and found a nice simple plan which I am now enjoying and look forward to each session.

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